Marathon night

Proctor’s Theater honors participants in Thanksgiving’s inaugural Bald Mountain Marathon with a special night of entertainment that draws a standing-room-only crowd despite the weather outside.

Record sports editor Martin J. B. McDonagh, aka Marty Mack Dee, gets the evening started with a patriotic tribute to distance running. “The essence of his remarks was that running races were really training events for America’s future soldiers,” a fellow sportswriter reports.

Mayor Cornelius F. Burns was supposed to hand out medals and cups to the marathon prize winners, but delivery of the trophies is delayed by the snowstorm. In lieu of prizes, the mayor “personally congratulated each of the boys and had some witty remarks to make as the athletes were called to the table down stage.

Marathon winner Harry Bernstrom misses tonight’s event. The soldier, based at the Watervliet Arsenal at the time of the race, is now with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.

The vaudeville program includes “crazy tumbling clown” Eddie Montrose, the vocal duo of Clifford Nelson and Jane Castle, Jimmie Hussey and William Worsley in “The Fox Hunters,” the Midnight Rollickers and their “all jazz” orchestra, comedian Lou Holtz ( who “put over a lot of true to life stuff”) and the Martha Hamilton company in “Oh, You Women.” The Hamilton sketch is “a bit out of the ordinary and for that reason was keenly enjoyed.”